Horsham hardstand: Yankee Buzz Bomb pictured in mid-May 1944

Unknown – Possibly RTZ in June 1945

An original group aircraft assigned to the 752nd Squadron, Yankee Buzz Bomb was with the group from March 1944 through April 1945.  During that time the aircraft amassed over 80 combat missions, survived an emergency landing in a beet field and had its olive drab coat of paint stripped down to the natural metal finish. Some sources cite this aircraft crashing in Scotland on its return home after the war, but no information can be found to support this.  The crew of Lt Edward L. Holmgren, had two interesting combat flights on this aircraft.  After the war, Ed Holmgren wrote accounts of these two missions that can be found on the Stories page here.

Incident

April 15, 1945: Yankee Buzz Bomb (center) about to release napalm canisters.

Many of us had heard of the new jellied gasoline bombs called Napalm, but heretofore we had never used Napalm and it was with great interest to hear that in another raid to the ROYAN AREA, the 458th would be using 75 and 85 gallon tanks of Napalm.  Word was also passed around that we would also use a number of planes carrying M-47 incendiaries.  The Napalm would be dropped first, then the incendiaries would follow.  After our successful bombing of the previous day, we were assigned another target in this area to make devastation so complete that the French forces could move in and mop up the remaining Nazis left.  MAJOR LAVELL, Asst S3, was the Command Pilot for the day, leading 27 A/C over the target area, dropping 45×75 gallon tanks and 85-gallon tanks, plus 156 M-47’s in the target area with unobserved results due to the heavy smoke from previous groups.  However, the damage wrought this day made it possible for the French to capture the entire area with little personnel loss.  It is interesting to note that there was no fighter escort furnished this day, we believe the first time in the history of the group.

458th Mission Diary – April 1945